Simple Gifts
by Jessa L'Rynn
Summary: The Doctor knows what he is and what he did, what he always does. He has come to a decision, but when he stops to talk after Journey's End, a new Journey, to see the path behind him, begins. Response to Genne's request for July II.
1. Chapter 1

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. July Challenges are now available, and what a twist for one of them. If you'd rather do June's, instead, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks to all those who have participated thus far - we had an exceptional turn out for June II for example. The new challenges will run through the end of July. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.  
**

For the July II Challenge, I was asked by **Genne** for the Doctor to take a sort of "quest" after Journey's End. I was given the specific situation: the Doctor thinks he ruins his companion's lives. I was asked to show something different.

I was required to have him witness the funeral of one, the wedding of another, ask advice from one, and see a companion simply living a life. I was also asked for Bessie the car.

This fic will, therefore, be in four chapters, posted over the next four or five days.

* * *

**_Simple Gifts_**

**Chapter 1: Alistair's Advice**

He was an old man now and he had long since retired with the rank of a full general. Nevertheless, his eyes were keen, his hands were steady, and his reflexes remained sharper than a man's half his age. His given name was Alistair, but most of his friends - and a vast majority of his family as well - simply referred to him as "Brig", short for Brigadier, a momento of a rank and a life that he had grown beyond.

Still, he loved that life. The trophies of it, bits of metal and ribbon mostly, followed him everywhere, but they weren't what meant the most to him. The pension paid for the full renovation of the old estate. The people, however, were his true retirement benefit: the friends he had made, the men still loyal, the contacts who still listened, the wife who still loved, and...

An unearthly wail, the sound of time arguing with it's owner, filled the house and the grounds.

...and the alien who would still remember all of them when everything else was dust.

When the TARDIS didn't appear near to hand in the back garden, the Brigadier resigned himself to hearing from his wife later about unnaturally large London memorabilia on her hardwood floors. Still, he hurried. The Doctor had only done it once before, but it had been an emergency. Maybe this was, too.

A quick search of the downstairs leant no light to the situation, so he finally went upstairs. There was one room, not a guest room as such, a room that was always kept for a friend (or family member?) who seldom used it. The Brigadier walked down the hall to that room, and took a quick glimpse inside.

There was a tall, thin man in a brown suit and an overcoat stretched out on the king sized bed, his head on the ornate pillows, his eyes fixed on eternity as seen through (or possibly around) the ceiling.

The Brigadier raised an eyebrow. "What did Doris tell you about shoes on the bed?" he said.

Three quick twitches and the bright red trainers dropped to the floor with a thud. Otherwise, the man hadn't moved.The Brigadier sighed. "Can I get you anything, Doctor?"

The Doctor said nothing. The Brigadier, who really was getting on in years, decided he didn't have forever to wait for the Doctor to acknowledge him any further than he had, so he took a seat in the nearest chair and snagged a book from the night stand. It was one of the Doctor's, apparently, as it looked like it had been read only once by being flipped through at an impossible speed.

They stayed there, like that, in silence, for an indeterminate amount of time. The Brigadier was just thinking of going to get a drink when the Doctor finally spoke.

"I can't do it any more," he said, in a choked whisper.

The Brigadier nodded. He'd heard this before. He didn't necessarily believe it. "I see," he said.

The Doctor looked at him, then. His eyes were huge and so very dark, full of stars and incomprehensibly ancient pain. The Brigadier had watched those eyes change over the years, growing older and just that tiny bit more mad every time he saw them, even as the color of them and the face that bore them varied wildly.

"You're serious," the Brigadier said.

The Doctor nodded. "I missed you during the Sontaran thing."

"I heard," the Brigadier said, hoping to get a comment about how UNIT had nothing better to do than gossip. It didn't happen. "The Daleks?" he ventured.

"As always," the Doctor said. "They're gone now, but I've still lost everything. And I had so much, this time... too much, maybe, more than I deserve, certainly. But I've seen what I've done, what I've become. Davros is right - everything I touch turns to ashes."

"Is that the way you see it, then? Not the things you've done that have saved the world and made people better?"

"I used to do that," the Doctor said. "I used to make people better. But now, I don't. I touch their lives and destroy them, one way or another, and nothing you say can change that."

"You have a time machine," the Brigadier said. "Why don't you get out there and see for yourself?

The Doctor lay there, looking thoughtful for several minutes and then, abruptly, he sat up. "Let me take you away from here," he declared, a look on his face of zealous determination. "You and Doris. Let me do that."

"Whatever for?"

"This is the twenty-first century. Everything's going to get very complicated. The invaders are going to be stacked up so deep, they'll practically have to make appointments to take over the world. You're my oldest friend, Alistair, maybe my last friend. Let me get you and your wife away from this."

"No," said the Brigadier firmly.

"But you could die here!"

"I can die anywhere," the Brigadier reminded him. "I'm mortal and I'm human. You seem to enjoy forgetting that, since you've managed to know me for hundreds of years. But I'm only human, Doctor, and I'm dying every day, have been since I was born. That's our fate, just as this constant changing is yours. But I only have one death - it's mine, the only thing that is wholly mine, that no one can take from me. It's mine to spend however I choose, and if I want to use it to save the world or change it, that's my choice. I won't let you take that from me, not for any reason, and certainly not because of... this."

The Doctor just gaped at him, and the Brigadier watched as the wheels in that vast brain began turning. He looked, for a moment, as if he might never speak again, and that was, of course, exactly when he chose to speak. "There was a paradoxical time line that didn't happen. Where an old enemy managed to take over the world."

"You mean Harold Saxon?" the Brigadier asked. He almost laughed at the look of dismayed incredulity on the Doctor's face. "I may only be human, but believe me when I tell you I recognize that megalomaniac when I see him."

"Then you can imagine," the Doctor said. "A lot of good people might have died - did die - didn't die. It was all my fault."

"You never did give yourself enough credit, Doctor. Oh, all the blame, you heap that on by the bucket full. But you never let yourself think that maybe it's not you. It's the way we are. We're born in blood, Doctor. Human to the bitter end, and most of us would rather die than betray our greatest friends. I've been down that road. It wasn't pretty."

"I really can't do this any more. I'm so old now, and I'm so tired."

"That's your choice, of course. And you're welcome to stay as long as you like. But if you don't mind advice from an old friend who'll never be as wise, I don't think you should give up."

"Is it giving up? Or would it be saving the Universe again? This time from me?"

"Why don't you check?"

"What?"

"Go look in on some old friends, Doctor. I know Miss Smith's seen you recently, but what about some of the others? Why don't you see them again? If you really have destroyed their lives, if your intervention really did make them miserable then, please, by all means, retire with the rest of us. But if I'm right, that isn't what you'll see. And you may understand then."

The Doctor considered these words, and finally stood up. "I... I might try that."

"Good," said the Brigadier. "But before you go, I wonder if you might help me with something."

The Doctor - so young, with such old eyes - swallowed hard. "Anything," he said.

The Brigadier smiled. "It's just there's this car in my garage gathering dust. Someone ought to take her for a spin, don't you think?"

The ancient eyes lit up, bright and incredulous, full of delight and wonder. "Bessie," the Doctor breathed excitedly. The trainers were on in a whistle, the young old man and the old young one out the door together in mere moments after that.

The garage door lifted, the tarp pulled back. The car sat there gleaming, alien and Earth, all cobbled together into something as unique as it was yellow. A soft, reverent grin lit the Doctor's face, practically from the inside. "Oh, that's brilliant!"


	2. Chapter 2

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. Brand new August challenges have been added for your entertainment, education, and inspiration. If you'd rather do July's, instead, I'm accepting July II Challenges until the end of August or until I can't keep up, whichever. Thanks to all those who have participated thus far - I've REALLY enjoyed all the results. The new challenges will run through the end of August. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

For the July II Challenge, I was asked by Genne for the Doctor to take a sort of "quest" after Journey's End. I was given the specific situation: the Doctor thinks he ruins his companion's lives. I was asked to show something different.

I was required to have him witness the funeral of one, the wedding of another, ask advice from one, and see a companion simply living a life. I was also asked for Bessie the car.

This fic will, therefore, be in four chapters, posted over the next four or five days.

* * *

**Simple Gifts**

_Chapter Two: Barbara's Bequest_

The groom wore simple black trousers and a white dress shirt with short sleeves. The old school tie he wore with them was striped diagonally and pinned with a narrow clip but otherwise was utterly unremarkable. The bride wore a dress that fit her narrow form closely, the hem just a hair's breadth below her knees. It was fashionable, in a retro sort of way, and was so pale in the bright garden that it took a second glance to tell that the dress was ever so slightly a new butter yellow. Her matching hat had a gauzy veil of sorts stitched to it, and it was perched jauntily in her perfectly styled, thick, dark hair.

The Matron of Honor was the couple's only child. Half of the guests had seen them stand before a minister before. The couple liked to joke that they had lots of practice at weddings, but no one understood why they laughed every time one of them mentioned it.

Barbara smiled at her husband and he rose from his seat, his strong and steady form giving the lie to his snow white hair. His eyes sparkled and he smiled warmly at all the guests, whether he knew them or not.

"Barbara and I would like to thank you all for coming to our second wedding today. Our second official wedding, that is."

A young man in the crowd caught her eye as Ian mentioned this joke and he nodded at her, his thin face all caught up in a brilliant grin.

"For those of you just tuning in," Ian continued, "we have been married a long time, my wife and I. We just thought we'd get one more ceremony in for old time's sake. We like even numbers. What can we say? We were school teachers when we met."

Barbara smiled up at him and took his hand as he continued. "I've learned amazing things since then. The world is a much bigger place than we ever imagined it could be, and it has been my privilege to explore that vast and strange Universe with this wonderful woman, Barbara Wright Chesterton, at my side. It's been thirty years now, as far as you know, and we're still learning, every day. I would never have traded a minute of the tears and the chaos, because without it, I would never have found out what any one in this room can see clearly. I was privileged for the opportunity to search far and wide for the perfect partner, only to always come back to the fact that she was there, always there, brave and beautiful, at my side."

His hand tightened, his grip still powerful despite the age that showed some times. She rose to stand beside him and he smiled into her eyes. "Barbara, I love you, I think I always have, and I just want you to know, if I had it all to do again..." His face twisted into a teasing, sparkling smile, "...I'd still vote to skip the third one."

She laughed and thumped him lightly on his arm.

"Honestly," he said, louder, "no, I wouldn't. Every moment we have had together has been another step toward happily ever after. Thank you for understanding me, supporting me, forgiving me, being the mother of my child, and loving me every day of our lives. And for marrying me, how ever many times it took."

He lowered his face then and kissed her, not a staid, correct kiss, but a proper snog, much too young for people their age, and much too public for the intensity of it. When the guests were cheering and their daughter was laughing, they finally broke apart, and Barbara's cheeks were flaming.

She had never loved him more than she did in this moment.

Later, there was dancing. Ian twirled their daughter around the floor while she complained good-naturedly about her kids and their father.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Chesterton," said a polite, pleasant voice, "might I have this dance?"

She turned her head and saw that very young man - he was perhaps a little older than her daughter - in the brown pin-striped suit. "Yes, all right," she agreed.

"Brilliant," he said cheerfully, and swept her into an elegant ballroom waltz. He was careful to keep his steps slow and measured, letting her easily keep pace with him.

"You dance very well," she said after a moment.

"Thank you," he said. "I don't do it often, but one tries to remember. I have to say this was a very lovely idea. You look radiant, my dear, simply radiant."

His accent had slipped on that last sentence from that soft south London cockney into something that sounded almost familiar for some reason. "You know, I can't think where I know you from."

"And that would bother you, wouldn't it, wise and clever lady that you are." He grinned broadly. "I read your book. About the Aztecs. It was inspired."

She felt that secret little smile twitching at her lips. She was so proud of that piece, had every reason to be. "Thank you. An old friend helped with it. Still, I'm rather pleased with how it came out, even thought there was a lot of legwork involved."

"Running?" he asked, his eyes sparkling.

"A bit of that," she agreed. "And a bit of asking the right questions."

He nodded. "Speaking of which. What's your daughter's name?"

"She's married," Barbara chided the young man gently.

His grin came back now. "I'd noticed. Children of her own, too, it looks. Funny to think of Ian being someone's grandfather, humm?"

Something in the way he phrased that gave her pause. His face stilled and he just looked at her, those huge dark eyes of his suddenly hauntingly familiar. "I just can't place it," she fretted. "I know you."

"You should," he agreed earnestly. "I was at your first wedding."

"You think," she said, again keeping the secret to herself. Oh, it was so long ago. The Doctor and his little accidents, and she and Ian had ended up married several times before they ever got around to acknowledging that it might not be a problem after all. She shrugged. "You must have been very young," she said.

"Oh, yes," he agreed. "So, so young, and far too old for that sort of mischief. But I never could resist." He smiled an impish smile at her, and his eyes were saying something, now, telling _her_ a secret, if she could only just catch on to it.

"So you were a troublesome tot?"

He shook his head. "I was a hopeless romantic, even then. I meant your first wedding, Barbara, your actual first wedding. I like the clothes you picked - just like that day."

She gasped as it all suddenly, impossibly clicked together. The music stopped, and the dance ended, and this not-so-young-after-all man let go of her hand. The world spun crazily for a second and she blinked.

When she looked again, he had rocked back on his heels a bit, his hands tucked into the lapels of his coat. "Congratulations to you both, my dear. Say hello to young Chesterton for me, humm?"

He moved then as if to turn away, but she stopped him with a gentle touch to his arm. "Doctor," she said, ever so timidly, in case this unbelievable fact was wrong. He nodded. "Her name is Susan."

The dark, now obviously ancient eyes flashed darker with deep pain, then bright again with enormous pride. He clasped her hand on his arm and stared at her, looking as if he might be too stunned to speak. At last, he swallowed hard, his adam's apple bobbing sharply, and smiled at her, a distant, wistful, nearly broken smile. "Thank you," he whispered, so softly she couldn't even be sure she'd heard him speak.

Someone laughed uproariously, and they both turned. When she looked back, her curiosity unsatisfied, the Doctor was, once again, gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. Brand new August challenges have been added for your entertainment, education, and inspiration. If you'd rather do July's, instead, I'm accepting July II Challenges until the end of August or until I can't keep up, whichever. Thanks to all those who have participated thus far - I've REALLY enjoyed all the results. The new challenges will run through the end of August. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

For the July II Challenge, I was asked by Genne for the Doctor to take a sort of "quest" after Journey's End. I was given the specific situation: the Doctor thinks he ruins his companion's lives. I was asked to show something different.

I was required to have him witness the funeral of one, the wedding of another, ask advice from one, and see a companion simply living a life. I was also asked for Bessie the car.

This fic will, therefore, be in four chapters, posted over the next four or five days.

* * *

**Chapter 3: Tegan's Treasure**

"Whatever happened with that one guy?" asked Colin, sipping at his iced Bloody Mary and probably not really caring about the answer. Tegan guessed it was probably the celery stalk in the drink that had prompted the question. She used to have that problem herself, but that was a while ago.

"We parted ways," she said, softly.

"Well, I'm glad you did, but I wondered."

"Did you really?" she asked. "I mean, I can't imagine you were ever willing to think about that experience."

Colin shrugged and took a long pull from his drink. "It wasn't as bad as it seemed at the time, you know."

"Yeah," she said, morosely. She smiled then, and shook her head. She never talked about it, mostly because no one would listen.

"You can talk to me," Colin promised. "I'm not like your mum or my sister. I believe it, since I was there once, and besides, it's not like I didn't always believe you, no matter what you said."

Tegan laughed, a little, and adjusted her sunglasses. They were sitting on a pair of well worn, wooden deck loungers, just watching the kids play in the surf. The beach bar wasn't crowded. There was some older couple at one table in the corner, and they were obviously tourists, as they sounded American. There was also a skinny bloke in a brown suit at the nearest table, his red trainers kicking periodically at the PVC piping that formed his chair. Still, it was relatively private. The couple only had eyes for each other - second honeymoon, she guessed - and the bloke in the trainers had a newspaper up over his face.

"The Doctor," Tegan began. "He was like magic and chaos, and he showed me the whole Universe. I used to blame him for everything that went wrong, you know. But I came to understand, after awhile, it wasn't him at all."

"But that thing, that one thing that kidnapped us, it took you just because you knew him."

"Yes, I remember. But the thing is, I never thought about it at the time. I just yelled and assumed he did it on purpose. You'd think no one, and I mean no one, could get in that much trouble by accident." She chuckled lightly. "But the thing I realized, after I left and I really stopped to think, is that it really isn't his fault. These things, they follow him, because he's that good. They're like moths, lost in the darkness, and they end up destroying themselves, trying to be close to his light."

"You really loved him," Colin said, sounding quite awed.

"Love," Tegan corrected. "You don't love the Doctor past tense. You love the Doctor or you hate him, and you always love him, no matter what. In a lot of ways, it's like loving a child. No matter what they do, they're still somewhere in there the child you love. In a lot of ways, it's like worshipping a hero. You don't really know him, you can't know him, but you know what he does, you see what he's made of everything he touches, and you can't help it."

"Your mum says he wrecked your life," Colin reminded her ruefully. He snorted as he said it, looking at the beach around them. Tegan agreed with him. This was the good life, the really good life, and only her mother could complain about a life like this.

"Well, you know. She wanted me to have a normal job and a husband. I don't, I can't. But then, I didn't want a normal job before I met him. I wanted to fly, and he took me flying farther than most people ever get to imagine going. Oh, a lot of it hurt, Colin, I'm not going to lie and say it was all fairy cake and teas under the stars. But there was that, too. Mind, there was that one place where the fairy cake tried to eat us. What I'm saying is that the things I learned can't be taught in school. I learned that I'm a whole hell of a lot smarter than I knew, and braver than I ever thought I could be. I knew to stand up for myself before I met him, but I learned how to stand up for other people, too, because I'm not the center of the Universe." She chuckled then and took a sip at her drink.

"That used to make him so mad, you know. Probably still does. He thinks that the things people do when he's around are his fault. What he'd never understand is that he's the catalyst, not the cause. People see him, one man standing up for what's right, and they think 'hey, I should have done that, we'd've never got into this mess if I'd said something sooner'. And they finally step up and do what they should have done to start with, and some times it costs them far more than it would have if they'd just stopped it happening in the first place."

She sighed then. "Some times I wonder if he's even still alive. Because some of the stuff that happens, well, that's no one's fault, but he still manages to end up in the middle of it. It's his ship, I'd bet on it. Think it either hates him or it really hates evil and drags him into it to stop it."

Colin changed the subject then, back to his job with the travel agency and her globe-hopping career as a child advocate in disaster-recovery areas. They talked about their families, besides his sister and her mum, talked about Colin's boyfriend and his ex-wife. Finally, the subject drifted inevitably to Tegan's own children, the half-wild urchins playing in the surf as they looked on.

"My mum thinks I should just marry someone, anyone, to give them a father," Tegan admitted. "But I sort of think they deserve better than that." She turned to Colin and frowned. "You know she wanted me to give them up."

"God, Tegan, I heard, you don't have to bring it up. I heard the whole rant, first, second, and third hand."

Tegan snorted. "Yeah, suppose so. You know, the Doctor's actually responsible for them, too."

The man at the table had a coughing fit, but Tegan ignored him, after a brief glance to check that he wasn't choking and in need of rescue.

"Oh, Tegan, you never said..." Colin began.

She laughed happily. "Not like that, don't be stupid! Well, it is sort of his fault that way, too, because their father looked a bit like him, but never mind. But when I found out I was pregnant, I really did consider it, but then I thought... I remembered what he always told me. 'Brave heart, Tegan,' and I thought about what I really wanted, and I realized that I'd never give them up. And I'm glad I didn't. They're my real treasure, the one thing I learned above everything else - that what you do and what you give up because you love someone or something more than yourself, that's what makes a life worth living."

She glanced up then, and stormed out onto the beach. "Adric! Let Nyssa go!" She reached the two and separated them, chiding them sternly and forcing Adric to apologize to his twin sister. She hugged them both, briefly, her sun-brown adventurers with their hair bleached white by the days spent under every sky of their world, their blue eyes shining with love and mischief. "Go on," she said. "It's back to lessons tomorrow, so enjoy yourselves while you still can."

When she arrived back at her seat, the bloke at the next table had gone. Colin, with an odd sort of frown on his face handed her a small card and gestured at the new drink on the table. "He bought it for you," he said.

Tegan stared, baffled, at the banana daiquiri with the celery stalk in it, and shook her head. Then she opened the card. In a very familiar, very nearly indecipherable hand, was scribbled a brief note that she would cherish for the rest of her life:

_"My dear Tegan - Brave heart, indeed. Thank you, far more than you'll ever know. Love from, the Doctor."_

"That was him," she mused, and shook her head with a laugh. "Should have noticed the shoes."


	4. Chapter 4

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. Brand new August challenges have been added for your entertainment, education, and inspiration. If you'd rather do July's, instead, I'm accepting July II Challenges until the end of August or until I can't keep up, whichever. Thanks to all those who have participated thus far - I've REALLY enjoyed all the results. The new challenges will run through the end of August. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.**

For the July II Challenge, I was asked by Genne for the Doctor to take a sort of "quest" after Journey's End. I was given the specific situation: the Doctor thinks he ruins his companion's lives. I was asked to show something different.

I was required to have him witness the funeral of one, the wedding of another, ask advice from one, and see a companion simply living a life. I was also asked for Bessie the car.

This final chapter was, while difficult, worth it.

* * *

**Peri's Purpose**

In the end, Alistair agreed to take one trip with the Time Lord, to bear witness to a sight he could not understand. The Doctor had said the events could never be seen by him alone, and the Brigadier would never have wanted his friend to have to witness this by himself, anyway. The grand, official ceremony had already taken place, the Doctor had said. This was smaller, and private, for those who honestly _knew_.

The Doctor stood with white knuckled hands and shook when they brought her in, an old woman borne on an ornate litter, her body placed on a marble plinth. "There," the Doctor whispered. "Now there is all the proof you will ever need of what I do."

There was a life-size portrait of a beautiful girl placed next to the byre, a smiling, glorious queen all clad in silver and crimson, her eyes turned upward, to the stars. Another portrait of the same woman, older this time, but still as beautiful, stood opposite. In this one, she was depicted with an entire bevy of people, tall proud men, small, perfect girls, all with her eyes and many with her strangely whimsical smile. The largest portrait, above her resting place, was of her and a king. He was an enormous bear of a man, and the Brigadier could not help but be reminded of portraits of Henry the Eighth.

The warriors around them all drew swords and battle-axes, an entire arsenal of archaic weaponry. The Doctor shook his head, grimly. The Brigadier wished he had a sword of his own. This was a proper tribute, a salute he understood too well.

He hadn't even brought his service revolver this time.

The Doctor closed his eyes and thus almost missed the beginning of what happened next. One by one, starting with a sad-eyed young man (well, maybe forty, younger than the Brigadier and certainly younger than the Doctor) with a golden crown, every warrior in the place dropped his weapon at the Queen's feet. The Brigadier thought the Doctor looked like he might faint. "Steady, old chap," he murmured.

The Doctor nodded and watched the young king who stood looking at the Queen, his head bowed low, the very picture of respectful grief. When the last of the warriors had discarded their weapons, the young man turned and almost, it looked like, smiled.

"Queen Perpugillium believed, firstly, in peace," the young man said. "And our world is better for it. Who could have said, in the past, before my father brought her to us, that any man should ever, would ever, die old? She loved us and our ways and respected them all her days, but hers was the way of strength through peace."

He talked then of what the Queen had done, aiding her husband in defeating the nearby Mentap threat, not by guns or swords, but by forging alliances among those who had suffered under the tyranny of the rulers of Thoros Beta. Her husband had once said that words were a woman's weapon, but it was a weapon she wielded with cunning and skill. She became her husband's partner, this bright eyed girl from far off places, far more than a king's consort; she was Queen of the Krontapp and ruled coequally at his side.

She was a healer of prodigious gift, made medicines and cured ailments that had long defeated their finest physicians, using only the good growing things that their world had given them. Long forgotten arts, she had learned them all, and they raised a school in her name to pass on what she taught.

She was a fighter, too, defending her place at her husband's side with weapons that did not kill. She never, ever took a life, though she would shed blood when there was no other way.

She was a mother, the young king proudly declared, his mother and his seven brothers and sisters, and she raised them all with love and devotion, teaching them her gentle, powerful, subtle ways, even as their father taught them the old ways. "Eight?" the Doctor mouthed, staring at the Brigadier in wide-eyed shock. The Brigadier shrugged back.

She was a grandmother. She was a teacher. She was a poet and a stateswoman and a leader and an artisan. She had lived a full and forever life, a life that had changed worlds upon worlds and she had never, not once, made a single move in anger.

The Brigadier envied her that. He could clearly see that the Doctor did, too.

The ceremony continued, a celebration more than a mourning. The Brigadier came to realize that these people did not believe in death, really, did not think it was the end of any life. They thought it the beginning of another one, and they rejoiced in the elevation of the departed soul, even as they grieved that their loved one had gone from them for a time.

A chorus of children were brought forward, and they sang a song, not of sorrow, but of brilliant, precious joy. It was an Earth song, the Brigadier knew it, and the king agreed with this as he introduced them, saying that the late Queen had loved it.

The Doctor had tears in his eyes while the tiny voices sang out the happy melody. "_'Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free, 'tis a gift to come down where we ought to be. And when we find ourselves in the place just right, 'twill be in the valley of love and delight._"

The voices split now into an elegiac harmony that could heal hearts and mend souls. "_When true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend, we will not be ashamed. To turn, turn will be our delight, 'til turning, turning, we come round right._"

The Brigadier wondered if the Doctor understood the message of the song. Being where one ought to be - that was the gift that the Doctor gave, more than any other. People could travel with him, take every loop and dodge with him, eventually turning round to a new way of thinking, the better way of being, a way of life that was simple, really, for all its complexity. A simple rule was what you learned to live by when you knew him: All life is precious, so do the _right_ thing.

The young king concluded the ceremony with a low bow of deepest respect to his mother's mortal form. "None who love are ever truly gone from us," he said.

"Amen," the assembled replied.

"Amen," the Doctor whispered, and it looked to the Brigadier as if he'd only just thought of that.

The ceremony broke up, then, with those present shouting grand salutes to guide the Queen's spirit to her next destination. The Brigadier yelled right along with them; he thought it suited.

The body was removed from the byre and interred in silence in a crypt at the back of the room. The portraits were shrouded in black cloth. The assembled departed, and still the Doctor and the young king both stood, waiting.

When only the three of them remained, the Doctor went forward, though the Brigadier noted reluctance in his every step. "You Majesty," he said politely.

"Doctor," the king answered with a real smile.

The Doctor started. "How..." he whispered.

"She knew you would come. She didn't know what you would look like, but she said you would be here. She left me a message for you."

"What... what was it?" he asked, and he looked like he expected a positively blistering tirade.

"Just thank you. That she lived a life beyond all her wildest dreams, and that she was grateful to you every day of her life."

"But..."

"No buts, Doctor. That was all. My mother had enormous respect for you, my father, too, you know. He sent his thanks as well, actually."

"How... how did he die?"

"An old man, Doctor. He died an old man and a happy man, and I have little doubt that he was the most surprised by both of those facts."

"And you are now King of the Krontapp?"

"Jason," the king said. He gave the Doctor an odd salute. "I'm named for you, Mother said."

The Doctor smiled then, a genuine, warm smile. "Yes, I suppose you are. Jason was a legendary adventurer."

"Jason is an old Earth word that means 'Healer'," the young king corrected. "And that is what she said you do, and what I believe I must do as well." The man eyed him carefully. "Both of us reluctant warriors, I think, and both of us have much work to do." He bowed to the Doctor, his hands clasped before him. "_Savvaluna_," he said, and turned to go.

He sketched a quick salute to the Brigadier, which the Brigadier returned in customary Earth fashion, and then he walked down the aisles and was gone.

The Doctor raised the shroud on the portrait of the girl, and smiled at her for a moment. "Thank you, Peri," he said softly. Then, he led the Brigadier back to the TARDIS.

* * *

"Of all the things I was certain of, the pain I inflicted on Peri was absolute," the Doctor murmured, some hours later, over a cuppa that Doris brought them. "I could never go back for her, never check on her, because the time lines of those events were so scrambled my very presence would have destroyed them. Only after her death were events cleared, and even then I couldn't have seen her without a mortal witness." He sighed. "I had to take the Master's word that she was safe at all."

"I can see why you were worried, then," the Brigadier answered.

"Oh, no. He never lied to me. You might have noticed that? No? Well, he didn't. That was one of the things about him - he never once told me a single thing that wasn't true. Any number of things that I didn't want to hear, yes, but every one of them was a true statement of fact."

"I think you were right, though. She was absolute proof of what you do, Doctor. Her life was amazing."

"That was her, not me," the Time Lord said deprecatingly.

The Brigadier rolled his eyes. He seriously considered delivering a blistering lecture on the Doctor at this point, but let it pass. The afternoon drifted lazily by and the Doctor sat there in his thundercloud and his rain, while the rest of the world stood calm and sunny around him.

"Maybe Jason was right," the Doctor said, after a while. "I do have work to do."

"True," the Brigadier agreed. Doris came out then with a pitcher of lemonade and the suggestion that they might want to start thinking about dinner if they wanted to eat before midnight.

The Doctor smiled at her, a sincere, brilliant grin that made him look so astoundingly young, even his ancient eyes sparkling like a child's. "Can I have chocolate cake?" he asked playfully.

"Not until you eat your vegetables," she answered, utterly unfazed by anything the Doctor could come up with. The Brigadier hid a smile by turning to look at his grill with some longing.

"Go ahead," the Doctor encouraged. "You know you want to."

Doris laughed. "That's fine, Alistair. We've some nice steaks, and the Doctor can fix those carrots he does so well."

The Doctor nodded and followed her into the house, a glass of lemonade clutched in his hand and a wistful smile on his face. Some time later, the Brigadier meandered into the kitchen, just to make sure the Doctor hadn't completely destroyed it, under the pretense of checking that the Doctor still ate his steaks medium-rare in this incarnation. (One of him preferred them cremated, and another wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole, so it was best to check.)

The Time Lord was cooking, and he had rarely looked happier. He had rarely sounded happier, either, and the Brigadier smiled in relief. He leaned back against the wall, and listened to his oldest friend sing.


End file.
